Political Actions and Effective Management

Power and Decision-Making

The political frame is based on a variety of assumptions that affect leadership following this frame. Political leaders believe that managers and leaders live in a world of conflict and scarce resources. The central task of management is to assemble power and mobilize the resources needed to advocate and fight for the unit's or the organization's goals and objectives. Political leaders emphasize the importance of building a power base: allies, networks, and coalitions. A good leader is an advocate and negotiator who understands politics and is comfortable with conflict (Bolman & Deal, 2009, pp. 194–195).

Power can be viewed from multiple perspectives. Under the political frame, power is connected to the relationship between two antagonists: partisans and authorities. Authorities being agents of social control, seek to maintain their position of power. Hence, they make binding decisions. Partisans, on the other side, are subject to authorities' decisions (therefore recipients of control), and will support or question authority depending on how the decisions made by that other group affect their interests.

Power can come from different sources, individually or from a combination of some of the following:

· Position of power

· Control of rewards

· Coercive power

· Information and expertise

· Reputation

· Personal power

· Alliances and networks

· Access and control of agenda

· Framing, i.e., control of meaning and symbols

Bolman, L., & Deal, T. (2009). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Conflict in Organizations

Conflict can spark creativity, energy, and personal improvement, when it is managed in constructive ways. Managing disagreements and conflicts is needed to break the cycles of dysfunction in organizations that can result from groupthink, narrow-mindedness, overconfidence, or complacency.

As discussed before, diversity in teams increases the likelihood of conflict due to the differences in the backgrounds of the team members. Globalization has increased the diversity in the workplace, with a consequent increase in potential conflicts. Any conflicts should be correctly managed to take advantage of those differences in a constructive and productive way. However, mismanaged conflict can result in destructive effects like sapping energy, destroying creativity, and weakening interpersonal relationships.

The political frame stresses that the combination of scarce resources and divergent interests surely produces conflict. Organizational resources are in short supply; there is rarely enough to give everyone everything they want. Individuals compete for jobs, titles, prestige, and other benefits. Departments compete for resources and power. Interest groups fight for policy concessions. If one group controls the policy process, others may be frozen out; hence, there should be a balance. Conflict is normal and inevitable. It is a natural by-product of collective life, and it has benefits as well as costs. Managers need to work hard and develop competencies to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits.

Manager as a Politician

Managers never have all the power they need to get the job done, therefore, they have no choice but to attend to political issues in organizations. A manager needs to get involved frequently in bargaining and negotiations to obtain the resources needed to lead the organization in a productive way.

He or she needs to have a clear vision of the future, and define goals that will help him or her to achieve this vision, mapping the political terrain along the way. He or she has to build a strong network, working with different groups and articulating the differences among them to achieve the defined goals. A manager also needs to clearly identify, for each individual situation to be faced, who are the allies and who are the enemies, and work closely with both the groups, but always trying to maintain and increase his or her base of support.

Organizations as Political Agents

As discussed previously in this module, managers and leaders need to be extensively involved in bargaining and negotiation to be able to achieve the organization's vision. Conflicts among different groups with different interests and agendas ignite conflicts that need to be managed. This environment can be seen as a political arena, where the pursuit of self-interest and power is the basic process both within and between organizations.

From a political perspective, managers and leaders can be seen as political agents, constantly doing their best in this political arena to achieve goals that are important for the organization to succeed. They need to be prepared to play their role well as shapers of the playing field, influencing decisions regarding how the game is played, who the contestants are, what rules are in place, and what interests will be pursued.

Ethics and a good repertoire of interpersonal skills can definitely help managers and leaders in performing this role.